


How it Should Be

by Fluffifullness



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Durarara!! Kink Meme, Foe Yay, Gen, Human Experimentation, M/M, Not Quite Gen, Slight Canon Divergence, evil!Tom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fluffifullness/pseuds/Fluffifullness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom has always thought that Shizuo would make an interesting test subject. Much to Orihara Izaya's eventual chagrin, he is given the perfect chance(s) to find out if he was right.</p><p><em>(Because this was written in response to a kink meme request for evil!Tom, there is some</em> slight <em>canon divergence and/or OOC!Tom. Both pairings are only lightly implied.)</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	How it Should Be

**Author's Note:**

> Written, as my fic often is, in response to a [ prompt](http://drrrkink.livejournal.com/6253.html?thread=21661293#t21661293) on the _Durarara!!_ LJ kink meme.

It was a nice gesture.

Actually, it was more like a saving grace, and Shizuo preferred not to wonder what he would have done if Tom-san hadn’t been there to offer him a job that night. It was a dangerous one, sure, but that only meant that it paid more – better than any of the crap jobs he’d had previously – and he was free to be himself without worrying so much about property damage and hospital bills.

Whether he actually _liked_ that version of himself was, of course, more than open for debate. It didn’t matter, though; it was what Tom-san needed, what he advocated and encouraged. The violence and the bad reputation suited the job and helped the man who had helped him. That was why he kept at it and gave it as little thought as possible – didn’t exactly enjoy it at first, but Tom-san told him to relax, that he didn’t _have_ to beat anyone up, and that quickly helped make it tolerable.

(And it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been that way for a long time – unthinking, surrendering to what he’d long since deemed an unchangeable part of the nature he’d been unlucky enough to inherit from god only knew where.)

Celty congratulated him like Celty, Shinra like Shinra – with friendly inquiries and offers for semi-invasive medical examinations, respectively. Kasuka didn’t know about it for a while, but that was because Shizuo didn’t want to disappoint him. He’d made a promise, after all – to hold down one job, and that had been a _safe_ job behind a counter in the quiet darkness of a small bar.

He mentioned that to Tom-san over dinner – homemade, warm and traditional Japanese food – after his first day of work. The older man smiled warmly and reassured him, “It probably wouldn’t bother him as much as you’re thinking.”

 

~

 

It was an unexpected opportunity.

It had been years since Tom had last met up with Shizuo – years since he’d taken a job with Nebula and finally started enjoying himself so much more than he had back in middle and high school – and now this brief reunion not an hour after one of his coworkers had mentioned the ‘strongest man’ in the middle of a meeting.

_He’d make an interesting subject._

Yes – yes, he would. Tom had always thought so, but that had been before. Before he had the power to try anything, before there was anyone to back him up and before Shizuo had a reason to fully rely on him.

Newly unemployed, scratched up and looking all but dead to the world – or maybe like it was about to end – the timing right then couldn’t have been better.

And so Tom stepped forward, called Shizuo’s name and tailored his tone to friendly surprise and benevolence – “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

 

~

 

The initial buzz of novelty and the elation that came with Tom-san’s special brand of total acceptance faded to a glow of satisfaction after a week or so; the gratitude and respect that Shizuo felt toward his sempai, on the other hand, didn’t fade at all. The man’s cooking was great, and if accepting his repeated offers – dinner out, dinner at his place, drinking and TV and chatting about nothing – had been awkward at first, it quickly became part of a comfortable routine.

“Hey,” the blonde started one night. It had been a long day – lots of anger and fighting and debtors literally running away from their problems – and they were both tired. “Where’d you learn to cook, anyway?”

“The curse of the lonely single man,” the other responded with an emphatic look of deprivation, and Shizuo grinned. Not necessarily because it was _that_ funny, of course – just because his upperclassman hadn’t changed all that much in so many years, because he could always be counted on to lighten up conversations like this.

Shizuo’s own awkwardness was never a problem.

 

~

 

Tom started with tiny increments of the mild poison that he, himself, had helped Nebula develop. He watched Shizuo carefully every night as he finished eating; when anything seemed different, he made sure to keep the blonde around long enough that the exact effects could be properly observed and made note of.

(And how did alcohol affect him? How much did it take to upset his balance, to slur his speech?)

After a week, however, those effects were minimal – _if_ they were really visible at all. Shizuo himself seemed to be in higher spirits – which was good, because it meant trust and trust meant the continuation of Tom’s experimentation – but that in itself wouldn’t produce the tangible results that Tom was looking for.

(Was he able to focus for the same amount of time on the television, on an easygoing conversation with Tom? Was his vision consistently focused, his breathing even?)

And so the dosage was increased to twice what it had been at first. Another week passed that way, and when Shizuo started to worry about all the damage he’d been doing to the city, Tom promised to front him the money to pay various fines. The debt collector took care to track the frequency of Shizuo’s outbursts – was it more, was it less? – and as soon as he established the nonexistence of any sort of correlation he increased the dosage again.

(Did he stumble when he walked, stumble over his words or react differently to perceived slights?)

After three weeks of tireless observation, working two jobs and reliving the front he’d had to put up as long ago as junior high school, Tom grew just slightly impatient. Art was not to be rushed, but _this_ was both art _and_ science.

To a hearty dish of curry with potatoes and stronger-than-average spices, Tom deftly added an extra dash or two of yet another made-to-order experimental drug.

Surely something, somewhere, would change _eventually?_

 

~

 

Three weeks already, Shizuo realized in the midst of a long day off. The days seemed to have gone by so fast, and here he was now – sitting in a park, smoking leisurely and waving amiably as Celty’s motorcycle rounded a corner. The dullahan saw him just as he caught sight of her, and she responded by immediately changing course to head his way.

“Yo,” he greeted as she came within hearing distance. (Couldn’t exactly call it ‘earshot,’ he thought with an absent-minded grin.)

His good mood was immediately obvious to her, of course; not many others could ever tell, and most simply played it safe by assuming that Shizuo was _always_ a ticking time bomb. (He was, but the fuse tended to be significantly shorter on some days.) He liked having people like Tom-san and Celty and even Shinra – people who knew the difference between a pissed-off Shizuo and a tolerant one.

(People who weren’t like the bastard flea he’d run into earlier – always annoying, always assuming the worst of Shizuo. It was that creep’s fault, though; he _brought out_ the worst of Shizuo.)

 _Aren’t you a little pale?_ Celty wanted to know after a while – after a few random comments, small talk and mentions of Shinra, Shinra’s latest experiments and the random injuries he’d been called upon to treat. Shizuo could tell right away that she’d been working up to the question from the very start.

“You worry too much,” he responded with a lightheaded grin. He was, he’d noticed, but that didn’t mean much of anything in itself. Shizuo didn’t get sick. Period.

(Still, it was nice, having other people worry about him. Unnecessary, but really kinda nice.)

The dullahan cocked her helmet to one side and seemed to be staring at the blonde for a long moment after that. She obviously had plenty of her own doubts, but she – mercifully – wound up letting the matter slide nevertheless. _How’s work?_

“Fine.” Better than fine. “You know Tom-san, right? He’s a really nice guy. Great boss.”

 _Not well,_ Celty admitted, _but I think I know what you mean._ She waited through a few moments of silence, then added, _I’m happy for you, you know._

Shizuo smiled behind the fingers that held a second cigarette to his lips. He let his gaze wander to hide his embarrassment, the little happy flush to his cheeks – ‘the glow of friendship,’ Shinra would have said, and he’d have said it bluntly or with a touch of grandeur, as if it weren’t the most ridiculous thing anyone had heard in weeks.

The park wasn’t crowded, lit as it was now by the orange of the setting sun. The dinner hour was approaching, the streets and sidewalks emptying as people disappeared in search of cool drinks and warm food.

“I should probably get going soon,” he decided at length.

Celty offered him a ride. _If you’re not feeling well, you should take it easy._

“Jeez, you’re still going on about that?” he joked, his hand rising impulsively to tug at his dyed-blonde hair.

He wound up accepting, anyway.

 

~

 

Izaya loved days like this.

The sun was shining, the city full of humans and love and despair and glossy windows from which a humble informant could comfortably observe it all. It was the last day of the workweek, which meant a great many things in itself. People let their guards down at the end of the week, called it quits and thought of all the difficult and dangerous things as long past. They talked loudly with coworkers on their way home, got drunk and spilled secrets like beer. They were impulsive, unrestricted, volatile.

Extra-human and incredibly fun to watch.

Izaya had come across one of Ikebukuro’s most recent rumors on a day like this, and it was of particular interest to him now. (Because the end of every long week was a time for fun, and rumors that involved Shizu-chan were fun without exception.)

The ‘strongest man in Ikebukuro’ had found himself yet another job. He’d managed to hold on to it for an entire four weeks, now, and if that wasn’t news-worthy enough in itself – well, add to it the fact that he hadn’t managed all that by keeping his anger in check. If anything, his tantrums had grown _more_ frequent in the twenty-plus days since he’d started.

And yet, Izaya quickly realized as he watched Shizuo through the long and narrow lens of a pair of binoculars, the blonde was hardly in a worse mood. No – he was actually in far better spirits now than he had been in a long time.

Was it only because he’d most likely have a day off tomorrow? Izaya simply had to know.

 

~

 

Tom had been told, of course, of Shizuo’s especially volatile reactions to Orihara Izaya. He’d heard of Izaya, too, and he’d been carefully avoiding the informant’s watchful eyes for far longer than the mere month he’d already spent with his kohai.

He’d expected to be mostly prepared for their first encounter during work; he’d seen Shizuo fight many times before, after all. He more or less knew what to expect.

And yet he was caught incredibly off guard by the actual sight of those two duking it out. Shizuo was no slacker – on time or early more often than he was late, mostly polite and always eager to please. He didn’t talk much unless he was angry, and he was only angry when people talked too much or… well, there were a lot of things that seemed to always set him off, but Tom was more or less accustomed to it.

Shizuo was violent. He was a good guy, and he was violent.

His response to Orihara, however, surpassed the limits of mere violence.

 _“Flea!”_ the blonde bellowed, first, and Tom blinked in mild surprise. He’d been watching his kohai carefully from the corner of his eye – noticing the sickly tint to his cheeks, the sag to his shoulders and the way he just slightly dragged his feet with every step he took – but the outburst seemed to have come from nowhere. And then – the briefest flutter of an eyelid, a lilting gust of wind – he was gone.

The debt collector turned just in time to see Shizuo’s hand detach itself from the sharp corner of another vending machine. A slight man with a fur-lined coat and wider-than-life grin danced out of the way as gracefully as if the thing had been a feather moving in slow motion. Tom sighed at first – another delay, he thought. Another mess to clean up, but of course his facial expression would only convey tolerant exhaustion. Whatever would he do with this guy?

(He started by making another quick mental note.)

“I told you,” Shizuo snarled at the top of his lungs, “to stay the fuck out of ‘Bukuro, didn’t I?!”

(It looked so gentle on paper, but he in actuality he let his voice and the vowel that finished his sentence carry rather impressively.)

“Oh, Shizu-chan,” Izaya purred, “you know you’d miss me if I stayed away for too long~!”

Shizuo dished out a few more choice words, denied every taunt that left Izaya’s mouth, threw more things and threatened death or worse. Izaya initiated a bit of cat-and-mouse with a 180-degree twirl and a long leap into the shadows of the nearest alley. Up a wall, back and forth, and Shizuo followed without a first thought.

The pair was out of sight in seconds flat.

Tom wound up sending in an extra report to the higher-ups, promising himself that he would keep an extra eye or two on Orihara – because he was obviously just a little too deeply involved with Shizuo, a distraction, and that wouldn’t do – and then dropping by his office for a few new drugs.

He’d be upping the dosage from here on out.

 

~

 

_You really don’t look good._

Shizuo smothered another long sigh – his way of hiding the rapid pace of his breathing, the way it kept catching in his throat and his heart hammering in his chest. “Long day,” he admitted.

 _Izaya generally has that effect, doesn’t he…_ Celty pulled her hand back jerkily after just a moment, hesitation heavy in the way she shifted to glance apologetically at the screen.

Shizuo chuckled. “Nah, it’s fine.” It really had been a long day; it’d take more than the mere mention of the informant’s name to get him worked up – which was a bit odd, he knew, but maybe not any stranger than the exhaustion that had persisted since Izaya’s escape hours ago. Sure, he’d had a few run-ins – just punks, nothing that would’ve been all that strenuous normally – while finishing up his work with Tom-san, but – “I wonder what the heck’s up with me today…”

_You feel sick?_

Shizuo shook his head. “I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you actually wanted me sick,” he teased. Celty didn’t react as if she found it particularly humorous, though, so he let his breath out soundlessly and tried again. “Really, though. I’m just a little tired. Should probably sleep more or something…”

 _And make sure you eat a balanced diet,_ Celty suggested earnestly.

Shizuo laughed out loud, this time. “Right…”

_I mean it! Fruits and vegetables, too!_

~

“You look a little under the weather,” Tom observed innocently over dinner that same night – a vegetable stir-fry, complete with a fruit-and-nut salad on the side and an alarmingly large helping of another untested drug lovingly mixed into every bite. The substance should have been tasteless, of course, but the meal itself wasn’t. Tom knew that Shizuo wasn’t the type to particularly enjoy vegetables, but the blonde only smiled when he saw the table set and waiting for the two of them.

(He ate fast at first, said he liked it a lot and thanks for always going to all the trouble, but he slowed down quickly. _Good,_ Tom thought. _Let’s see what happens next._ )

“Celty said the same thing,” the blonde said with a quick smile. “She actually told me to eat more stuff like this.”

“Good timing,” Tom laughed. He noticed the blonde’s gaze slipping past his sempai’s face to linger on the table and then on his lap – and then he jerked back to full awareness, eyes widening as he reached clumsily for a cold glass of beer. (Not laced with anything this time, but that was because Tom fully expected the main dish to be sufficient.)

More food, more quiet chewing and random comments about things soon forgotten – Shizuo quickly wilting, his movements slowing, and Tom asked again if he was okay. (Knowing all the while that he wasn’t, that he wouldn’t be, that he shouldn’t be and that if he had felt _good_ then _that_ would have been a bigger surprise.)

“‘M fine,” Shizuo slurred – drunken grin, emphatic nod and his cheeks flushed dark and sick and inebriated. “Sorry, just.” He laughed. “Just drunk or somethin’.”

“You sure, man? You haven’t even had that much yet…”

Shizuo brushed it off as nothing. He kept insisting that he was fine even as he was led to the bathroom and allowed to empty his stomach into glinting porcelain and his hands curled into fists on unstained tiles.

Hm. Maybe Tom’d have to try lacing the remainder of Shizuo’s drink, too.

 

~

 

Izaya spent quite a few days after that feeling mostly dissatisfied. The running away was usually a terrific diversion – or at least a good way to make a guy feel appreciated, anyway – but he hadn’t learned much of anything. Effort without informational gains where he’d expected them was just frustrating. Frustration tended to build pretty quickly in Izaya.

Namie was usually pretty tolerant of his antics, and that, of course, was only because she was used to them. (Or just determined to ignore them, as if that would somehow discourage Izaya from doing all the things he so loved doing just to annoy her.)

However, even _she_ couldn’t help saying something after the informant sighed loudly for the hundredth – no, the _thousandth_ – time within the finite lifespan of an hour and a half.

“If it’s about that Heiwajima guy, why not just go looking for him again?”

Izaya rewarded her snappish remark with his very best know-it-all smirk. “Come on, Namie-san,” he scolded. “That isn’t how it works – common courtesy dictates that I give that monster at least another twenty-four hours to calm himself.”

The woman huffed and turned back to a stack of papers. “Whatever,” she retorted. Conversation over.

“Nice talking to you, too,” the informant said with another grin. He hadn’t needed the prompting anyway; there was more than one way to get closer to his Shizu-chan, and for Izaya it was all just a few chatroom conversations away.

Just a bit of casual research, a few vaguely curious inquiries and maybe a purposeful email or two. Izaya wasn’t busy, anyway, and curiosity had never killed anyone.

Only a cat.

 

~

 

“Tom-san,” Shizuo breathed finally – his heart hammering in his chest, face drawn and pale and everything down to his fingers feeling as heavy as ten vending machines. “Sorry, could we – rest? Just for a sec.”

Tom-san turned, surprised, to face the blonde. “Shizuo?”

“I know, I know,” the bodyguard sighed. “Just – fast.”

“No, it’s not that,” the older man clarified. “Shouldn’t you take the day off?”

Shizuo felt his – in-out-in-out, starved for oxygen and energy – breath catch in his throat. “I’m okay.” He was tired, sure, and maybe he should’ve been listening to Celty and her many heartfelt warnings about doctors and taking it easy, but this was his job and he had to do it. He needed the money, he owed Tom-san, he had an obligation or several. He wasn’t good at lying around doing nothing.

“If you’re sure,” Tom-san sighed.

“Let’s get going,” Shizuo decided, then. His blood was still roaring and rushing in his ears, but he forced himself to believe that he was feeling better, anyway.

 

~

 

And then Orihara Izaya showed up again – too bad, Tom thought, but there was little he could do about it right then. He stood back and watched Shizuo glare and fume and – no shouting, no crashing, no metal rending or superhuman parkour moves up the sides of buildings.

“Flea,” Shizuo hissed, his voice virtually dripping with resentment. “What do you want?”

“Oh? Is Shizu-chan going to make a habit of striking up conversations with me, now?”

“Tch.” The blonde turned to Tom, eyes narrowed and clearly outraged. “Let’s go,” he suggested, a muscle in his jaw tensed and ready to snap as he ground those few words out.

“My, what’s this?” Izaya danced just a few steps closer to Shizuo – poised to run, as always, but Tom wondered if that wasn’t a glint of dismay in the informant’s amber eyes. “Shizu-chan must be really out of it~!”

“Shut up,” Shizuo growled. “If you don’t have anything important to say, just get lost.”

Well, Tom decided. He – his experiment, the data he regularly sent to Nebula and the constantly-renewed satisfaction – was making progress, and here was just one more confounding variable that he wouldn’t have to worry about.

Izaya frowned, pressed a hand to Shizuo’s sweat-dampened forehead, and only then – only _then_ – did Shizuo snap, his fingers tight and infuriated on Izaya’s forearm and the informant sent flying into a brick wall several hundreds of meters away.

“Let’s go,” he repeated, and Tom complied with a barely-concealed grin.

 

~

 

His wrists were hurting, his fingers heavy and clumsy after hours of typing. Izaya hated that feeling almost as much as – no, probably more than – he hated not sleeping for extended periods of twenty-four hours and more.

He hated it, but he _loathed_ the very prospect of letting this sleeping dog lie unexposed.

Because there was something going on _right here_ , right in Ikebukuro – right under his nose, and he had yet to do more than scratch the surface. It was his business to know, both as Ikebukuro’s best information broker and as the man most despised by Heiwajima Shizuo. It was his duty even before it was his hobby.

He thought about it – about  the issue at hand, the things left undiscovered, the now-dormant monster – and he made several educated guesses. As an informant, Izaya thrived on guesses – hypotheses, if one opted to use the proper terminology. They provided him with a starting place, a thing to prove or disprove. They gave his searches a vague sort of direction and made them seem somehow more worthwhile.

This time, his pet theory involved one Tanaka Tom – a debt collector and as much an upstanding citizen as anyone working a profession like that could hope to be. A good guy, apparently an absolute normal himself but somehow no less capable of dealing rationally with the insanity that encompassed so much of Ikebukuro’s day-by-day existence. Shizuo’s boss, real charitable and respectful of the guy’s ‘human’ rights.

Izaya didn’t trust the man as far as his Shizu-chan could throw him.

 

~

 

Shizuo was on-edge. His muscles felt like teeth – no, like something being chewed on, or – no, the pain was more like having someone else’s hands under his skin, twisting and pinching and pulling…

The blonde groaned, braced himself with both hands on the edge of Tom’s just-cleared table, and let his eyes fall briefly shut. He wondered again why eating always, _always_ made him feel worse, and he cursed this germ or bacteria or whatever the hell was making him feel so awful.

“You want,” Tom-san offered, his voice sounding far-away despite the weight of his hand on Shizuo’s shoulder, “you can spend the night here.”

“I’m – ”

“Shizuo?”

“I – I’m fine, Tom-san.”

“Sure, but…”

No. He was fine. Because if he wasn’t fine, then he was sick, and if he was sick – hell, it might actually be serious. That was why Shizuo was just tired, just ready to go home and rest and leave Tom-san unburdened by a wet-blanket kohai with a nasty temper to boot.

“I’ll come to work tomorrow,” he promised. He always did, always right on time and lately missing the element of total destruction that had for so long been an integral part of the Shizuo perceived by everyone around him.

 

~

 

Tom received a new set of instructions from the _real,_ the _serious_ upper echelon of Nebula with what could only be called excitement.

Finally – something a little more personal, more in-depth and revealing. His hands on Shizuo – inside of him, too, blood and bleary eyes and drug-induced forgetting – and it would be so easy, so satisfying and with so little effort or need for manipulation on his own part.

The first time wasn’t even the best, but it _was_ perhaps the one that left the greatest impression on Tom. His hands and a glinting set of freshly-sterilized scalpels left several neat incisions on Shizuo’s stomach, on his arms and his chest and when the debt collector had had his fun watching the blonde – drugged out of his ability to formulate anything akin to thought, yet still somehow conscious – wince and shiver and groan, he laughed –

– laughed with eyes shut and blood-smeared fingers held to his chest –

– took some tissue samples, stuck them in the freezer in neatly labeled bottles –

– just as neatly stitched the wounds shut, bound them in white gauze and smiled hours later when the blonde stirred again.

Opened his eyes, brown irises clouded with pain and mouth slack. “Nn,” he whispered. He seemed to have recognized Tom, his room and then the state of his own body. He looked confused but not even remotely suspicious.

“You awake?” the older man murmured – gently, warmly, kindly. “Found you lying in an alley – what happened, Shizuo?”

I swear, he joked only half in jest, you’re lucky I know how to deal with those kinds of light cuts.

 

~

 

Izaya had always loved surprises, though of course he was like most humans in that he preferred pleasant ones to the obvious alternative. The real occupation of Tom, his enemy’s boss and close friend – his not-so-normal interests and bloodthirsty inclinations – was surprising, as was the fact that Izaya had failed to notice it for such a long time. He’d really let one get away, this time, and it was starting to look like that little fumble might cost him a valuable source of entertainment.

The surprise was not one of the pleasant variety, to say the least.

Shizu-chan did little to make up for the unpleasantness of it all – the dark spots under his eyes, the sleepy way he walked right past Izaya – right _past_ him, the brute – when the informant approached him on his next day off.

Having been thus ignored, Izaya spun around to face the blonde’s back, hunched and small-looking on a regular giant of a man. “Shizu-chan,” he called, and the ghost-like figure paused reluctantly.

Grunted to indicate that he’d heard, that Izaya had better speak his mind quickly or risk being brushed off like so much dust.

The informant laughed. “Not feeling well? Any idea why that might be?”

Shizuo turned to face him, his lips pressed together – a line of impatience, turned down at the corners. “Since when do you give a fuck?”

“How rude. And here I went to all the trouble of dropping by in person!”

Shizuo glared, sighed and stayed where he was. “Think _you_ know?”

Izaya smiled – I-know-something-you-don’t-know insinuated by the glint in his eyes and the laughter in his voice, “Of course, but where would the fun be in just handing you the answer? Besides,” he took a step back as the blonde’s look of confusion grew more pronounced, “you should already know.”

“The fuck, Izaya,” Shizuo sighed. He looked tired. Just tired, like he didn’t care because he didn’t have the energy to feel anything more than that.

Dammit. Dammit, Shizu-chan. That look didn’t suit him, it was uglier than his angry look, his eyes bright and furious and all of him a raging tempest. This look, it was – it was pathetic and no more human for that. A beaten monster. Useless, unresponsive.

Izaya hated it.

“Try talking to your beloved Tom-san about it, ne?”

Getting away from the blonde after that wasn’t hard at all. He was angry and pitiful and not strong enough to do anything but yell and stand and try breathlessly to give chase.

 

~

 

He knew what Izaya was insinuating. He knew how much sense it made, but it was wrong anyway. It was wrong and unacceptable and Shizuo wasn’t _sick_ , anyway. He was tired. He couldn’t sleep at night, couldn’t stay awake during the day, couldn’t do it vice-versa or blame _Tom-san_ for something stupid like that.

_Come with me. Shinra’s home now – he’ll take a look._

Shizuo refused. He always refused. If he ignored the problem, it’d eventually just go away – made perfect sense, dammit. He felt sorry for Celty – concerned Celty, hand on his shoulder to steady him, always time enough to give him rides to the places he said he had to go – but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t _his_ solution – it was _the_ solution. The only one.

“Shizu-chan,” Karisawa called – the next day, the next handful of jobs and stumbling wakefulness. He was walking with Tom-san, head bowed and eyes barely open to anticipate potential dangers. He barely raised his head to indicate that he’d heard that much-reviled nickname, and he didn’t understand the woman’s later comment – “like Nagisa-chan herself” or something – so he didn’t bother responding.

“Sorry,” he sighed to Tom-san at dinner that night. “Don’t think I can really eat much this time.”

Tom-san offered him an encouraging pat on the back. “Stay the night, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” Shizuo breathed. “Thanks.”

 

~

 

“He’s mine,” Orihara insisted. “He’s been mine for quite a long time, you know.”

Tom frowned as if he didn’t understand what his little adversary was getting at. “Shizuo might take exception to that.”

The informant smirked. “That’s part of the fun.”

“What do you want? Y’know, he mentioned having lost plenty of jobs thanks to you – just so we’re clear, it definitely won’t be that easy with me.”

“Oh,” Izaya murmured, “I don’t expected it to be.”

Tom sighed like he was talking to a lunatic. “Alright,” he muttered. “If that’s all, I have some stuff to do.” _You’re out of your mind._

He walked away with Orihara’s gaze drilling into his back, and only then did he let his own amusement show on his face, a smug-crooked smile and his hands in his pockets like any classic bad guy’s.

(Orihara knew, of course, exactly what he was – didn’t matter if he bothered hiding it, but it was more exciting this way. More thrilling wearing a mask like Izaya’s – composed, maybe benevolent, maybe just innocent.

And even Ikebukuro’s premier information broker wouldn’t stand a chance against Tom and the men who would quite readily back him up.)

 

~

 

Izaya knew what he was doing. He knew, also, what Tom was going to do. He knew how to deal with it, and he was confident that he could – because the guy wasn’t as smooth as he seemed to think he was. He wasn’t such a big-shot, not as untouchable as he believed himself to be. Like so many other humans – overconfident, self-assured. A fool playing right into Izaya’s hands.

It was funny – hilarious – just how gravely Tom had underestimated his opponent’s determination.

It wasn’t as if Izaya had never had a gun or twelve pointed at him. It wasn’t as if he’d never felt the sting of a bullet grazing his cheek, his arm – wasn’t _that_ different from having one buried in his shoulder, although it certainly stung a bit more than he might have anticipated.

He was fast, though. Even with one arm virtually useless, he was fast. There was no one better than him when it came to handling a switchblade. Or a handful of throwing knives, which was what he wound up using – foot twisting in the dust of an alley, hand emerging flashing and snapping back from within the folds of his fur-lined-blood-stained jacket.

He was hit again – just below the knee, an explosion of stinging, burning pain like something screaming inside him. The shot sounded loud even to him, and he was mostly convinced that that was his own voice crying out in pain when the third bullet made contact with his left side.

They’d underestimated him.

He heard it, now – his back-up, his plan B, an angry shout and a relatively lightweight sign colliding with the unsuspecting body of one of Tanaka Tom-san’s lackeys.

“How nice of you to show up,” he heard himself murmur, “Shizu-chan.”

 

~

 

Shizuo didn’t have to ask questions, then. Izaya was bleeding out, his leg collapsed under him, stomach oozing blood while his left arm hung idly at his side. His right hand clung desperately to a fistful of throwing knives, but he was obviously too distracted to make good use of them.

“How nice,” he repeated. His eyes fluttered shut as he collapsed back into Shizuo’s waiting arms – god, it was like something out of a shitty TV drama, and the blonde knew that Izaya wouldn’t ever let him live it down but, then, the flea looked just as ridiculous anyway – “He’s gone already.”

“Who?”

“You know,” Izaya murmured. “I told you before.”

Shizuo bowed his head. “Mistake,” he mumbled. “It’s a…”

“Fine, then – believe what you want. Whatever the hell you want.”

Izaya was mad, actually angry – bleeding, in pain just like Shizuo but not strong enough to deal with it while fighting. He hadn’t done this to himself; he didn’t do things like this for the hell of it. He was fighting for real, and maybe Shizuo was just a tool in that but if he could be involved as easily as this then he must have been missing something. He must have been closing his eyes to more than just the problems inside of him, the bandages and the stinging, aching pain every time he moved.

“Shizuo,” he heard. He didn’t turn around.

And then he did, eyes widening and finally understanding and betrayed and _hurt_.

“Tom-san.”

Maybe he’d shout at him, scream and throw some things – deal with it like he dealt with everything. Petty revenge, act like a kid, feel not even a little bit better and then go back to the old status quo.

Or maybe the latter would never happen.

 

~

 

They had enough data already, they said. If they went any further – if _he_ went any further – they’d be treading on half-cracked-already eggshells. It’d be a violation of basic human rights, and besides – Shizuo wasn’t a great threat the way he was now, but he’d recover. He’d already started to recover, in fact, and even pumped full of a veritable cocktail of drugs and poison and who knew what else he’d put up quite a fight just to protect Orihara Izaya.

And the same could be said of Izaya himself, minus the drugs. They were a formidable combination, sure, and maybe that was because they had their mutual hatred to protect or maybe it was because they shared another something – something stronger, irrevocable. Something that not even Tom could’ve ever hoped to sever.

(Until then and to the best of Tom’s knowledge, Orihara Izaya had never fought to kill.)

Still, he was reluctant. He hated losing almost as much as Izaya himself did, but of course he wasn’t nearly as stubborn. He knew when to call it quits, and he’d certainly had his fun already. The debt collector hadn’t lost anything particularly valuable, anyway – nothing he hadn’t been lacking for a long time already, nothing he had any reason to value over a bit of fun and some pseudo-scientific experimentation.

(Just Shizuo – lovely, vulnerable, naïve Shizuo. Just his strength and the enigma that was everything about him. Just the knife inside of him, scraping and cutting and his blood and everything the drugs did to him. Volatile, incredible Shizuo.)

He supposed that he and Izaya were alike in more ways than the informant would likely have preferred to admit.

 

~

 

“You were right,” Shizuo admitted days and weeks later. He was still pale, still a bit too thin and not as temperamental as he should have been. He wasn’t himself, but he was getting there. He was fighting more, destroying more, regretting more. He was a mess of insecurity and self-doubt and anger and wondering what he’d ever done to Tom.

(Nothing, Shizu-chan, nothing, but have you ever wondered if it’s all about what you _didn’t_ do to him for him with him?)

Izaya watched his nemesis with a lingering grin and almost leaned into the fist that connected with the curve of his jaw. He reveled in the overpowering iron scent and the tingle of blood on his tongue. The resounding crack, the lights that seized control of his eyesight to leave him blind and staggering back into a brick wall.

“Good,” he murmured to the blonde’s retreating back. “ _That’s_ how it should be, Shizu-chan.”


End file.
